The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1887-04-21
taph: Here lies the victim Of dissipating
49,.

taph: 'Here lies the victim Of dissipating
associationsm
Another test by which you can find whether
your scored society is right or wrong is the
effect it has on your secular occupation. l
can understand how, through an institution,
a man can reach commercial success. l know
some men have formed their best business
relations through such channel If the Sc
cret society has advantaged you in an hon
orable calling, it is good one. But has your
credit faileds Are bargain makers more
anxious how they trust you with bale of
goodsa Have the men whose names were
down in the commercial agency A before
they entered the society been going down
since in commercial standing? Then look
out You and l every day know of CONNER
cial establishments going to ruin through the
social excesses of one or two members, their
fortune beaten to death with ball players,
bat or cut amidships with the front Prov Of
the regatta, or going down under the swift
hoofs of the fast horses, or drowned in the
large potations of cognac or Monongahela.
That secret society was the Loeb Earn. Their
business was the Vile du Havre. They
struck, and the Vile du Havre went underl
The third test by which you may know
good or bad is this: What is its effect on your
sense of moral and religious obligation? Now,
if should take the names of all the people i'll
this audience this morning and put them on a
roll, and then | should lay that roll back of
this organ, and 100 years from now some one
should take that roll and call it from A to z,
there would not one of YOU answer | say
that any society that makes me forget that
fact is bad society. When go to Chicago
I am sometimes perplexed at Buffalo, as l
suppose many travellers are as to whether it
is better to take the Lake Shore route or the
Michigan Central, equally expeditions and
equally safe, getting to their destination at
the same time. But suppose that hear that
on one route the track is torn up, the bridges
are down and the switches are unlocked, it
will not take me great while to decide which
road to take.
Now, here are two roads in the future-the
Christian and the unchristian, the safe and
the unsafe. Any institution or any associa-
| ton that confuses my ideas in regard to that
! fact is a bad institution and bad association.
I had prayers before l joined that society,
did / have them afterward? l attended the
house of God before connected myself with
that union, do l absent myself from religious
influences? Which would you rather have
in your hand when you come to die-a pack
of cards OF Bible? Which would you rather
| have pressed to your lips in the closing
moment-the cup of Belshazzarean wassail or
| the chalce of Christian communion! Who
would you rather have for yonr pallbearers-
| the elders of Christian church or the COM
! panions whose conversation was full of slang
| and innuendo? Who would you rather have
| for your eternal companions those men who
| spend their evenings betting, gambling,
| swearing, carousing and telling vile stories,
or your little child, that bright girl whom the
Lord took? Oh. you would not have been
away SO much nights, would you, if you had
known she was going away so soons Dear
| me, your house has never been the same
place since Your wife has never frightened
up, she has never got over it. She never will
get over it. How long the evenings are with
no one to put to bed, and no one TO whom to
tell the beautiful Bible stories.
| What a pity it is that you cannot spend
more evenings at home in trying to help her
bear that sorrow You can never drown
| that grief in the wine cup. You can never
break away from the little arms that used to
be flung around your neck when she used to
say: Papa, do stay with me tonight, Do
stay with me tonight" You will never be
able to wipe away from your lips the dying
q
bad secret society is SO great that sometimes
a man has turned his back on his home when
his child was dying of scarlet fever He
went away. Before he got back at midnight
the eyes had been closed, the undertaken had
done his work, and the wife, worn out with
three weeks watching, lay unconscious in
| the next ROOM Then the returned father
comes upstairs, and he sees the cradle gone
and the windows up, and says: "What is the
matter?" On the Judgment day he will find
| out what was the matter.
Oh, man astray, God help you'll am going
to make very stout rope You know that
sometimes ropemaker will take very small
threads and wind them together until after
| a while they become ship cable And am
| going to take some very small, delicate
threads and wind them together until they
make very stout rope. l will take all the
memories of the marriage day-a thread of
| laughter, a thread of light, a thread of
music, a thread of banqueting, a thread of
congratulation, and l twist them together
and have one strand.
Then take thread of the hour of the first
advent in your house, a thread of the dark
ness that preceded, and thread of the light
that followed; and thread of the beautiful
scarf that little child used to wear when she
| bounded out at eventlde to greet you; and
then thread of the beautiful dress in which
you laid her away for the resurrection; and
then twist all these threads together, and
have another strand. Then take a thread
of the scarlet robe of a suffering Christ, and
thread of the white raiment of your loved
ones before the throne, and a string of the
harp cherubic, and string of the heart sera-
phic and l twist them all together, and
have third strand. "Oh," you say. "either
strand is enough to hold fast worldl" No;
I will take these strands and will twist them
together, and one end of that rope [ will
fasten not to the communion table, for it
shall be removed; not to pillar of the organ,
for that will crumble in the ages; but l wind
1t round and round the cross of a sympathiz-
ing Christ, and, having fastened one end of
the rope to the cross, throw the other end to
you Lay hold of it'll Pull for your lifel Pull
for Heavenl